Editorial: Perfect is as perfect does

Head coach Bill Belichick is the kind of perfectionist who doesn't see the glass as either half-empty or half-full; he always thinks there's something wrong with the water.

The Patriot Ledger

"Now, I ain't saying that I'm perfect, 'cause I'm not. And I ain't gonna never be. None of us are. But we have won every single game we have played till now. So this team is perfect. We stepped out on that field that way tonight. And, uh, if it's all the same to you, Coach Boone, that's how we want to leave it."

- From the movie, "Remember the Titans."

Perfection is an ideal, truly never attainable by fallible humans.

We know this intellectually. Our Constitution states that we seek to form "a more perfect union," as if perfection itself is not the plateau.

But nothing can be "more perfect." Like pregnancy, it is or it isn't.

And yet fans and sports pundits have used the term to describe the just completed New England Patriots regular season - a "perfect" 16-0.

Anyone who watched the procession to undefeated can tell you there were a number of flaws on the journey - a need for four fourth-quarter come-from-behind wins; intervention of fate in Baltimore; late game heroics of our own Mr. Near Perfect, Tom Brady; discovery of the Fountain of Youth by the aging linebacker corps; and the tight collars of opponents unable to swallow when they had a chance to defeat the three-time Super Bowl champs.

Head coach Bill Belichick is the kind of perfectionist who doesn't see the glass as either half-empty or half-full; he always thinks there's something wrong with the water.

"It certainly wasn't perfect," Belichick said in the wake of the surprising 38-35 defeat of the New York Giants. "There were a lot of things that were not that good."

To a man, the Patriots said the unblemished record - they are the first team to ever win 16 regular season games and only the fourth team in NFL history to go undefeated in the regular season - will be meaningless if they fail to win their three post-season games that culminate in the Super Bowl.

They are the favorites to do it but many among us agree. Perhaps we've become spoiled. Like our forefathers, we are in search of "more perfect."

Renowned philosopher and former Red Sox pitcher Bill "Spaceman" Lee once said a true perfect game in baseball would be 27 outs on 81 pitches, all called strikes or swings and misses.

We do not know what the equivalent in football would be but until someone can define it, we have to say "this team is perfect."

And for the only football fans in America to experience 16 weeks of unparalleled exhilaration, it's been a perfect season to cheer for the New England Patriots.

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